I hit the "Increase Difficulty" button at the very beginning of the workout. It worked because Maya gave me some new moves. But holy crap was it harder. For instance, yesterday I burned 280 calories doing the same workout. Tonight I burned 340, an increase of about 20%. That's a HUGE difference.

Just a couple of days ago, I increased the intensity slightly by telling Maya "No Sweat" after each exercise segment. After that, I did notice a slight (very slight) change in difficulty. But hitting the "Increase Difficulty" button in the menu tonight was a lot different. There appears to be a big difference between those two options. Watch what buttons you hit in MFC!!!

Maya told me my Physical Challenge is next. On Wednesday I'll actually do it (rather than just entering the same info from before) to see how my measurements have changed. I'll probably wind up running on Wednesday, but On thursday I plan on doing MFC again without changing the difficulty (kept at the high level) to see both if I can do it again (or if it's a little easier the second time) and to see if I get any more new moves. After that I may need to bump it down again because it's crazy at this level.

Exercise: Tonight was the night for Maya's Physical Challenge on My Fitness Coach. I've been bypassing all of these since early January, so I thought I should go through it again. I didn't do the push-ups or squats because I maxed them out last time, knew I could still do it, and didn't want to impact my run later. I did, however, do the crunches because the max is 60 and I didn't max it out last time. Unfortunately, I could only do the same amount this time.

The Physical Challenge started with measurements of certain body parts (arms, chest, stomach, legs). Most of these went down a little, except for the stomach measurement. No change. On the bright side, my wife measured me this time, while I did the measurements myself back in January. I think we're both equally inaccurate in how and where exactly we're measuring, so I'm not putting a lot of emphasis on these measurements anyway.

Then I had to do the Jumping Jack test. As other posters here have mentioned, this really does suck! My heartrate was sky high when I measured my pulse afterward. 162 beats / minute. That's pretty high. I also noticed something else about the JJ test, which I'll post in one of the threads about that test. Basically, Maya just tells you to go as long as you can, and when you poop out, hit the end button in the lower right corner then take your pulse, so doing the full 2 minutes is not required.

After the kids went to bed, I got in a 20 minute run on the treadmill similar to the last one. Then 15 minutes of Yoga on MFC to stretch. My wife was patiently waiting for me to finish yoga so we could watch Lost. The yoga music put her to sleep.

After upping the difficulty last session, it was back to regular difficulty today. I don't know if it is because the "increase difficulty" button is temporary or because I just completed the Physical Challenge and the difficulty was reset because my heart rate was so high. After doing that tough session last time, this was a piece of cake (especially because I only did 30 minutes). I told Maya no sweat for all the exercises to slightly increase the difficulty next time.

Exercise: 45 minute cardio workout on My Fitness Coach. The workout was still fairly easy. Only 260 was calories burned, so I told Maya "no sweat" again. I need these to be more intense, and I don't know how many times I have to tell Maya no sweat in order to get the level where I would like it. I wish there was an easier way to dial in the difficulty. Also, I finally unlocked "gold" status, and opened up the House music and a new workout background.

Eating: Eating was fine today until I ruined a perfectly good eating day with beer at night.

Exercise: 45 minutes cardio on MFC. Finished with 15 minutes yoga.

The difficulty felt higher tonight, but at the end it said I burned the same amount of calories as last night (about 260), so that's weird. Once again I told Maya no sweat after each segment to bump up the intensity next time.

After the yoga, I found out that my next workout was the Physical Challenge, again. I just did this last Thursday. I remembered that I entered in all my non-MFC exercise in my history to get credit for it, because I wanted to unlock the new section and music, and found out that when you miss a scheduled day, the count starts over. By not logging in my other things, I would have never reached the gold status.

On top of that, when I do 2 sessions in a night (like tonight) it counts as 2 seperate workouts. So, 10 workouts later (4 days) I was back to the Physical Challenge again. *sigh* I didn't do anything but enter in what I did last time, except for the heart rate. I put in 150 beats per minute to hopefully increase the intensity. There goes all the "no sweats" I've entered over the past few days. One day I'll figure this out.

Eating: Eating was just ok today, I could have done better but didn't.

Exercise: 20 minutes running on the treadmill like the last time. I felt pretty good running today.

Then I did a 15 minute core workout on MFC. In total it was about 7 minutes of actual ab exercises. I would have liked to do a couple more exercises, but I still got a pretty good workout. Those side crunches are killer!

At the end Maya told me I burned about 35 calories. Good thing I was doing this for the ab work and not for the calorie burn. I probably burned more calories climbing up and down the stairs with my fitness ball, which of course didn't even get used again.

At 179 pounds again, I'm feeling very happy about my progress so far. When I first started exercising again five months ago to lose weight I was at 205 pounds and busting out of my pants. I made my long term goal to be 180 pounds, which is where I'm at. Now that I'm here, while I'm very happy, I realize that I can and should go further. I think my next long term goal is to get to 170, with a small intermediate goal of 175 (baby steps). Wii Fit would still considers me "overweight" until I reach around 155 pounds, which sounds silly, but who knows.

This morning my wife told me I needed to buy new pants. She said my pants look ridiculous all bunched up around the waist. I don't like to shop, but hey, I wish all problems in life were this trivial.

Exercise: Despite a horrible day for calorie intake, I still got in my workout. I did a 30 minute cardio MFC session and a 15 minute yoga session right after.

For the MFC cardio, I increased the difficulty at the beginning by going into the menu and clicked on "Increase Difficulty". It definitely was more difficult, but was ok because it was only 30 minutes. I told Maya "no sweat" after each segment to make sure the difficulty level would stick (I'm still not sure how that works, but I didn't want to take a chance).

By comparison, my last relatively easy workout was 45 minutes and I burned about 260 calories. Tonight I burned 230 calories in 30 minutes. I also got many of the newer moves I normally don't get, including a new one called Fast Step Up or something like that. It's a very fast move as the name suggests, and while not difficult to do, it really got my heartrate up.

I'm starting to like the shorter and more difficult 30 minute workouts over an easier 45 or 60 minute one. I might do this for a while.

Exercise: Another day where I did not want to exercise at all. But I still did anyway. Put the kids to bed, it was 8:30, what else was I supposed to do? Thankfully, this is sort of my new hobby. My last hobby dissapeared, so I guess this is it!

Jumped on MFC for a 30 minute cardio session. The increase in difficulty from last session did not stick, so this was a pretty easy workout. (170 calories vs. the previous 230). I guess if I want to push myself, I have to tell Maya at the beginning to step it up. Silly girl!

I finished with a 15 minute core workout on MFC. This too was very easy, and not at all like the last one I did on MFC. I did two extra sets of crunches at the end just so I felt like I did something.

In all, I was pretty dissapointed with the level of intensity of tonight's workouts, but I was proud of myself for at least doing something productive.

Fitmonkey, You are doing great with the weight lost. I have been doing the same thing with my weight this week. Down to a good number and then back up to my old number. I did step up my workout and I know I'm eating right so what's going on with us? We can get to those lower number but I seem to stay right here.Keep up the good workouts this next week and we both will see good number. Well it's almost time for me to workout and go to work. Have a great weekend. Peg

You are an inspiration! I know how it is to not want to work out but have to make yourself do it anyways! Like that it's your new hobby! My "kids" are now adults even though they both still live at home but I remember how hard it was to find the time to work out when you are raising a young family!

Hi all, thanks for the positive thoughts. I've been mia from this forum for a while it appears (man, time flies!).

I hit my initial weight goal and started to slack off a bit last week. Work commitments didn't help with any of that either. I think I only got about 3 workouts in last week. By the weekend, I realized how much further I need to go.

I've been heavy before, lost the weight, and then let apathy leave me in an even worse condition. I don't want that to happen again.

Fortunately, I've gotten back on track this week, but have failed to post my log. This log is good for me, as it keeps me accountable to myself. So, I need to commit to updating the log.

Thanks again for all the kind words! They helped me realize that I'm not just posting here to keep myself accountable, but to also hopefully show anyone who happens to see it the daily struggles of someone who is trying to lost some weight.

Exercise Yesterday: I did 30 minutes cardio on My Fitness Coach. I used the "increase difficulty" setting at the very beginning to get a more intense workout (I've been doing this lately). Also, before I started, I changed my commitment from weight loss to core in order to get some ab exercises instead of the usual lunges, squats, and plie.

I've been trying to do more ab stuff lately since I have a vacation coming up. The faintest bumps are starting to show on my stomach under my layer of beer belly. I know it probably doesn't matter a whole lot to do any ab work since I can't really see anything, and that I'd probably be better off just focusing on losing more weight instead, but I can't help myself. Since it really doesn't matter a whole lot at this point anyway, I figure I'll just keep doing the ab work to make myself feel better.

My Physical Challenge also popped up at the end of the workout. I went ahead and entered all the same information without actually doing anything. Except for the active heart rate - I lowered it to 144 bpm to hopefully get away from pressing the darn "increase difficulty" button at the beginning every time. I'll see how this works out.

Eating Yesterday: Just so-so, I kind of pigged out at dinner last night, so that might have something to do with the major weight change from yesterday. Plus, my scale is running low on batteries. I haven't bothered to figure out what kind it even takes yet. I figure it's those weird ones that cost a lot.

Exercise Yesterday: Nothing yesterday. Free day I guess.

Exercise Today: Today I did an upper body workout similar to the last few. I bumped up the weight or reps on each exercise to push myself.

I added a few more reps to the pull ups and could barely clench my hands on anything afterward. Those really are killer. I do them on an I-beam in my basement that has a 2 x 4 attached underneath so it doesn't tear my hands apart. Lo-tech, but it works.

I felt pretty pumped up after the workout, and was flexing for my kids as I woke them up for nap and was singing the wiggles song "getting strong" that they're familiar with:

Eating Yesterday: Just so-so again. I haven't been very focused lately on minimizing calories, which I should be. Luckily I haven't been totally pigging out either.

Exercise Yesterday: I didn't exercise Sunday. I had two chances to do it, and blew them both.

I've been stuck at 182 for a few days now. I still haven't figured out exactly why. It's most likely because my lows of 178-179 came after days of eating well and exercising, while the past few days my eating and exercising has been sub-par, so for now I'll just attribute it to both the unusual low and water. I'll see if by the end of this week I can get back down to the high 170's. If so, most likely the weight is water, and if not, the extra pounds are the more permanent variety.

But for sure I've noticed the ability to shed weight at this point is getting harder and harder. My body doesn't want to let it go, and my mind doesn't want to put in the extra work required to get there. I need to get inspired again.

Exercise Yesterday: 30 Minute cardio MFC session with the long term goal set to Core. I hit the "increase difficulty" setting at the beggining again. Despite lowering my active heart rate, the difficulty did not change compared to last time. Maya said I burned about 210 calories.

Using the "core" as the secondary focus (after main aerobics section) is ok, but it's not really enough. I did 2 sets of crunches after it was over to finish the job. I may switch the long term goal permanently back to weight loss and just do ab work on my own outside of MFC. I have to admit that it will be hard for me to do without Maya there pushing me. I'll see how it goes.

After a clean day of eating and exercising, I got back to 178 this morning. I may have been correct with my assumption yesterday. Or my dying scale batteries are playing tricks. I hope to get new batteries today.

Exercise Yesterday: 45 minute upper body MFC workout with core set as long term goal.

I didn't know what to do last night. Maya cardio, treadmill, nothing? I wanted to change it up, so I did an upper body workout with Maya. I'm starting to think I should be doing upper body stuff more than just once per week.

I was used to getting the first 1/3 of the time as aerobics if I did a non-cardio workout. So I set it to 45 minutes expecting the first 15 to be aerobics. I also pressed the "increase difficulty" button because that's what I've been doing lately.

Holy Crap, was I wrong. Maya was in one of her moods last night!

First, all I had for aerobics was the 3 minute warm up. That was it. Maya went right into....leg exercises? Huh?!! Some of those Plie exercises, then lunge squat combinations. Killer! Various leg exercises filled the first 15 minutes.

Next, Maya finally went into the upper body stuff. She started off with three sets of 12 2-count pushups (pushups 5). Holy Crap. I thought I was toast at that point. Then she rolled in two more sets of regular speed pushups (pushups 3). I could only do about 6 reps each time. That was insane.

I brought up my step, fitness ball, and 8, 15, and 25 pound weights. I didn't need the step for aerobics, but I'm glad I had it since it was used to do some tricep dips. I also had a lot of fitness ball exercises, so I finally got to use the ball again (it's been a while). Also, I only should have brought up the 8 pound weights. I never would have thought I could get a good upper body workout with only 8 pound weights, but I did, and it was still killer. (I even went down to get the 5 pounders for one exercise (bent over tricep extensions, or donkey kicks).

I had to do this bicep exercise that was also insane. I don't remember the name, but essentially it was 32 curls, which I had to do twice! I'm glad I only had the 8 pounders - I almost couldn't finish the second set.

Finally, the last 7 minutes was core exercises. I was already pooped, but it was very good also. The two sets of 2-count side crunches did me in. Then Maya made me do two sets of regular crunches after that. Holy crap!

Basically this was a fully body workout in 45 minutes. I was totally pooped at the end and my body was shaking. I must have ticked off Maya somehow because she made me pay. I'm glad though, because it was very good.

And after all that, Maya said I burned 150 calories for a 45 minute workout. Not very much, but it was still a very good workout. I think I'll bring Maya flowers today to try to appease her and calm her down a bit for the next workout.

Morning Weigh-In: ?? Gahhh! None of the drug stores have this size battery! Stupid German scale! Tonight I'll try Radio Shack. They always have everything.

I'm so lost without my scale. I'm pretty obsessive complusive about weighing myself (about 3 x per day). I know, bad, but I can't help it!

Eating Yesterday: I ate well yesterday.

Exercise Yesterday: 30 min Cardio MFC session with Core still set as long term goal.

Good Lord were my legs sore yesterday! All because of that (no kidding) upper body workout! Go figure.

I did not want to exercise last night. I was tired and sore. I had planned on running, but my legs and butt hurt too much for that. I almost took the night off, but came to the realization that I would rather take Friday off, so I went crawling back to Maya on My Fitness Coach.

I brought her flowers to hopefully calm her down a bit. It didn't work. She threw them on the ground and crushed them with her heel. Then she told me to "Move, Move, Move!!!" Maya can be brutal sometimes.

I pressed the "increase difficulty" button again today. Maya was still on a rampage. Maybe it was because I was sore, tired, and didn't want to be there, but I swear this was one of the most difficult sessions I've had.

A lot of BIG moves. Back to back knee ups (twice), cross countries and fast steps (not all together but spread out). I was breathing pretty hard the entire time, and there were barely any easier moves to catch my breath.